Experts: ‘Obama worm’ probably a student prank

By eSchool News

January 30th, 2009

A new internet worm, discovered at an Illinois grade school, that displays an image of President Obama is likely a prank by a student, CNET reports. Walling Data, a distributor of AVG security software, said the worm it discovered on computers at an Illinois grade school spreads via external devices like USB drives and network shares. Once a week, on Mondays, it displays a photo of President Obama’s face in the lower right corner of screens on infected computers, but otherwise it appears to be more of a nuisance than a threat. The worm looks like a variant of MAL_OTORUN code that spreads using thumb drives and network shares, said Jamz Yaneza, a senior threat analyst and researcher at Trend Micro. "Someone played around with one of the many number of DIY malware kits and just added this small social engineering bait of Obama’s picture," he wrote in an eMail. Given that it lacks a malicious payload, "it is probably some prank by a student, since today’s ‘serious’ malware, as you may have noticed, would have at least installed a keylogger to steal some information," Yaneza wrote…